What's In That Sarcophagus?

Sarcophagi are common encounters in DnDish adventures.  Especially, but not exclusive to, those adventures involving tombs, crypts, catacombs and the like.

While they can just be plain stone boxes, that isn't much fun.  Cover it with carvings or faded painted murals to incorporate a warning, a clue, or just to further build your world.

Sometimes, a sarcophagus is not only a closed stone box, but also chained shut, perhaps even sealed with a magical sealant or caged over to keep something inside.  Typically, the fancier the attempt to keep something in, the more likely the PCs are to open it, breaking the seal and releasing something terrible.  

Keeping graverobbers out, or keeping undead in?

The better players don't even complain when whatever was sealed away with clear warnings butchers one or more (or all) PCs.

Chains and seals and cages aside, opening such heavy stone boxes typically requires levers, great strength, and/or a combination of both.  Personally, when I am keying an area with sarcophagi, I make a note about total strength needed to move the lid and how many human-sized people can fit around it.

So, one sarcophagus might read (str 60, room for 4) meaning that up to 4 PCs can contribute to opening it, meaning they each need a 15+ strength to be of use.  If the group isn't strong enough, the sarcophagus remains sealed.

But once that heavy stone lid goes crashing down (wandering monster check because its so loud), what lies inside?

1. Corporeal Undead (zombie, skeleton, wight, vampire, mummy, ghoul) with or without yellow mold infestation.

2. Mouldering corpse (or not undead mummy) infested with yellow mold.

3. Just a long dead body.

4. A foul black ichor (maybe black pudding, maybe just really gross disease-ridden filth).

5. A set of stairs descending into darkness.

6. A naked body that looks exactly like one of the PCs.

7. A mechanical or magical trap.

8.  Treasure, free and clear and obvious.

9.  A corpse that is the mortal shell of an incorporeal undead (ghost, wraith, specter).

10.  Empty (or maybe just the contents are invisible).

From B4 The Lost City, artist Jim Holloway

Of course, the kind DM puts some form of treasure in most sarcophagi - grave goods, if nothing else.  

Bodies wearing armor and jewelry, items in wrappings or a shroud, a plank under the body hiding a cavity in the sarcophagus, a secret compartment in the base of the sarcophagus.  Even the underside of the lid can be a place to hide something - a map or just the scratchings of the person inside trying desperately to escape. 

If grave-robbing bothers you, just pretend you're all archaeologists, and that it's in the name of science and history that you are desecrating tombs.  Besides, the museum is paying you well enough to acquire such artifacts...